my first corporate hike, and of course we almost die

I've been nagging my colleagues and printing out topos for the past few months trying to get some people together to do a hike. Finally, one colleague, T, agreed to go on a hike with me this evening. She's training for a half marathon. I also invited two of my male colleagues. One simply said "I won't go hiking with you because you'll kill me." The other said "Well, how far are you going?" When I responded "Four miles" (I was lying, the trail was 7 miles) he said "But that's SO FAR!"

Um, what?

Anyway, the hike was beautiful, in an area called Las Trampas. They weren't kidding in the reviews about it being steep though. One woman started her trail review with "My butt still hurts!"

No, sillies, she was talking about being sore from hiking.

I said we would only hike until it started getting dark because I only had one headlamp and parts of the trail are narrow, densely wooded, with steep drop offs and I knew there was no moon tonight. But then we decided to go to the top ridge even though the sun was sinking fast. When we got there we saw two huge bald eagles. I thought they were kites at first they looked so unreal. The hills in front of us changed colors 5 times in 5 minutes as the sun set. Beautiful. (I need to bring my camera next time)

Then, as we descended from the ridge back into the woods I heard an owl. We looked up and saw it - it must have had a wing span of at least 6 feet. He was so cool. It was the biggest real owl I've ever seen. There wasn't enough light to take a picture unfortunately. We could hear him making owl whooing noises the rest of the descent down the trail. I am taking his sighting as a good omen.

We arrived back at the car right as it got really dark. I was so busy congratulating myself for my impeccable timing and speeding so my colleague could get back to her hotel to do some work that I almost missed the fuckwit deer that decided to run out of the woods and in front of my car. It's a little Mazda 2. Would not have been pretty. I slammed on the brakes and slowly turned in the direction I thought the deer was not going. The ABS sounded like it was full of gravel and about to explode and the car was sliding along the road with the deer running next to it. It was kind of James Bondish, as much as a car trick in a Mazda 2 can be James Bondish. I literally missed the deer by centimeters. My colleague didn't say anything for a second, and then she said "Did we ALMOST DIE?"

In my world, not really, but she was pretty shook up. Hopefully the story doesn't spread. I'd like to get more people out on hikes.